Oceanmist Single Tone FE Special Sedan

[Spinner]

Sorry for the long title  (I'm not really sorry ).

Have started work on the doors of my (daughter's) sedan.  Neaside doors have been stripped out and removed from car a/c all bailey channels and quarter window seals to replace and inside door faces to repaint.  All stainless trim has been removed from the doors too, because the previous owner fitted new trim retaining brackets but failed to fit washers under the nuts or seal the openings.  For some reason, they removed the factory fitted sound absorbing material too.

On cleanup, the door insides (inside face of door skin & door frame) come up pretty good.  The upper door framing still shows patches of shiny metal, the upper door skin has lots of surface rust.  The door interiors have been wire brushed (mm what fun), the bottom of the door skins scraped with a screwdriver to 'gently stir' the years of dirt & dust settled in there and re-open the drain holes.  A go over the inside with a vacuum cleaner has revealed solid door skins with no evident corrosion, the door frames have some corrosion along their bottoms. Nothing serious.  

Sunday was spent doing the above as well as sanding the door cap & frame ready for repainting.  Whilst the car is single tone outside, it is two tone inside.  More of this later...

Last night's job was to paint phosphoric acid (known as rust converter) to the insides.  Another great job, made easier by having the doors off the car, so I could turn them any way I chose.  There's not much room inside a door when your hand is in there along with both hands, a leadlight & a paintbrush!!

Anyway, back to the two tone interior.  My doors are painted with the darker green on the door caps & window frames (interior) as per a two tone Special.  The interior is treated similarly to Ret's stock sedan.  A difference to Ret's one is that the dark green extends across the tops of the wodow frames all the wat to teh inner edge of the flange, the actual demarcation between Oceanmist exterior and dark green interior colours being the top edge of the door.

What colour is the dark green?  Spinner, being a smarty, says: "Well, dur, it's dark green."  Actually buying the right colour to repaint it requires a slightly 'more scientific' name than that though.  Spinner gets smart idea of taking the inner 'A' Pllar moulds off, using the inner face of those (never being exposed to sunlight, they will have the original 1957 shade on them).  

Well, these pillar moulds are painted in a metallic dark green, similar to BRG but metallic.  The pillar mouldings have'nt been repainted, the opinion of the staff at Kenny's Auto Paints (Carramar) is that the paint on them is the factory finish.  Common understanding of the colours offered on the FE states that only one metallic colour was offered, and it's not green.  Ask Alfie about Rosie's colour.

For the NSW members, I'll bring one or both along to the next meeting (Tuesday night next week) as a kind of 'show and tell'.

Discussion over to you...

[mike]

Yes I have a 1956 single colour oceanmist green car that is completely original 97,000 miles and the dark green paint definately appears to have the tiniest amount of metallic appearance to it (with very small metal flakes) I am not up to your stage of painting so I cannot help you with the paint code but just agreeing that it is a metallic paint maybe someone out there knows?

regards mike.

[RET]

Spinner,

Your best bet will be to get it professionally matched if you can.

What I can tell you is that this paint style when introduced on single-tone special FJs was called "Duo-Tone", and on them - just as on FEs - the secondary colour was not listed on the body plate.  However, on some FJ wrecks the secondary colour's abbreviated name can be seen on the firewall.  Apparently it was chalked onto the firewall and painted over, and eventually it would weather out.  Examples of this can be seen in Don Loffler's books.

It was typically a colour that was commonly combined with the body colour in two tone vehicles.  And in the case of Ocean Mist Green, this was only ever combined with Huron Green.  So that narrows the field a bit  (See http://www.fefcholden.org.au/techinfo/gmhpaintcodes.html)

I have been told that there was a flattening agent added to the paint before being applied to the dash-top area, to reduce the glare, but I'm unsure as to the veracity of that.  As far as the masking of the doors is concerned, it might have varied from factory to factory.  Ken could tell you more I'm sure.

Hope that is some help to you,
RET

[mike]

Here is an example,

regards mike.

[ACE]

Mike you've got good taste in cars.
You have one of my other favourite Holdens (HK Monaro) parked next to your FE.
ACE

[mike]

Hi ACE
yeh I reckon I have done ok, got one FE special, one FC standard and a genuine 327 monaro. I dont think it can get any better.

regards mike.

[mcl1959]

There is another metallic FE colour - It is Bermuda green.
Similar to Etna maroon in having just a hint of metal in it.
I'm pretty sure the Ocean mist green cars had Bermuda green interior.
I have just purchased an FE with Bermuda green roof for wrecking.
Masking of the doors was done differently through the years, early cars were different to later cars.

Ken

[RET]

Sorry Ken, can you clarify?

Oceanmist Green and Bermuda Green is a combination used on Specials, or Bermuda Green is the "Duo-Tone" colour used on Oceanmist Green Single-Tone Specials?  There's no trim number listed in the Tech Info area if it is the former.

cheers
RET

[RET]

Brett,

Whilst researching something completely different, I came across this nugget in a GM-H Service Bulletin dated October 1956 (No. H108-G):

INSTRUMENT PANEL FINISH

 The flat paint finish of the upper shroud panel located immediately above the instrument panel is achieved by adding to the regular Duco 25-30% by volume of BALM Duco Flatting Base No. 299-9733.
 The mixture is then thinned in the normal way with lacquer thinner to spraying viscosity and applied with spray gun.  To preserve uniformity of colour shade, touch up of a damaged shroud panel is not recommended, but rather the complete panel should be coated with the semi-flat lacquer.

You learn something every day...

cheers
RET

[mcl1959]

Sorry RET, I missed this question when you posed it.  Bermuda Green is the duo tone colour with Levant Green.  This is GMH colour code number 224.  So a typical trim code (such as the one I wrecked) would be 224-471.

Ocean Mist Green was the duo tone with Huron green - GMH code number 200.

However the single tone cars used a different set of colours which I don't quite understand except that Ocean Mist green appears to go with Bermuda green on the interior, although there is no ID plate reference to the colour.

Ken

[RET]

Thanks Ken, I'll update the Tech Info section accordingly.

Have you ever come across any documentation that shows the mapping of interior paint (or Duo-Tone) colours for Single-Tone Specials?

For that matter is there an exhaustive list of Two-Tone Trim Codes, or only the heuristic list I have been using up until now?

cheers
RET

[Geoff_K]

Hi Ken and RET,

In following the paint and trim codes for the Oceanmist Single Tone FE, I am interested to know if GMH had a list of Paint Colours that were to be used with each Trim Code.
i.e, as asked by RET, what documentation, if any, is there that shows the mapping of interior paint including colours for Single-Tone Specials, and are these colours cross referenced to the Trim Codes.
By using known examples some pattern is evident, but was it ever defined by GMH.

cheers
Geoff_K

[streetneat]

I have, as a panel shop owner, some dulux  bibles from the eighties . These list the colours of all Holdens from day one. This gives the formulaes as well for acrylic only... Here in lies the problem. I have been leading a one man quest to educate the masses out there that the paint codes/colours and formulations are only good for reference.... It is impossible to replicate these colours today by using these formulations... Why?... well the tinters are vastly different to the originals  like Balm paints etc.. When we were still using acrylic in the eighties we were able to make these coluors up using AAA Dulon acrylic... Even then we had enormous difficulties in colour matching.  When we took paint samples off to a spectrgraph to anylise what the hell was in them, the colours were way different to the formulaes... Even this process did not yeild the results we were expecting... In the end we would make it as per formulae and modify it to get some thing pretty darn close... These days we paint everything in two pack ... we can addd some flattening base to replicate the dullness of acrylics but no-one has ever requested we do this.. Most want a perfect shine on their cars and rightly so.. When the general public view these cars alongside acrylic finished cars they often comment on why the acrylic car looks shabby in comparison. The restorers out there are adament that the acrylic finish is the only way to go... fortunatley many are realising the errors of their choices and more and more are now being finished in two pack... The technology has gone from acrylic paints and the paint companies are the first to tell you this... Acrylic is porus and the car has a limited time b4 the paint has to be redone again. Long gone are the days when they made a decent acrylic like AAADulon.... The cars wearing this paint today are nearing the end of that paintjobs life... I get into debates over this acrylic V two pack  regulary... I back my stance up by the fact I work with the stuff and know a lot more about paint than some amatuer enthusiast who might be able to paint cars but its not their job to have the product knowledge I have to have... I have copies of reports/articles by major paint companies that they have deliberatly made acrylic an inferior product to what it used to be as they are phasing it out and want people to use two packs.... To get a perfect paint match on a classic today is simple... We carry thousands of different colour swatches that have no paint name or manufacturers name on them and this is called a profile system. Perfect matches to the samples brought in are possible with this method. The codes for old holdens never got transferred over as there is never enough demand for this... So we are left with eye matching . The Human eye can detect eleven million diferent colours.... so we have an advantage over any computers except for spectrographs - that still get it wrong sometimes as what we see and what they see is sometimes different... I pity those who wont shed the blinkers and stick with acrylics... Its only themselves they are fooling... We can even touch up acrylic cars using two pack with pretty good results its hard but not impossible... The misconception out there that when a two pack paint job is damaged it is very hard and exspensive to match and touch up is just that - a misconception... The technology is so advanced now that its more cost effective to use two packs  for every car. Hope fully this information will help others out there when making paint choices. Cheers streetneat

[Emu]

Wow,

What an excellent explanation of Acrylic vs 2 pack.

I, as an absolute amateur, have been having discussions along these lines as i am only a few weeks away from having "Hilda"painted.

Can you give me a summary of the preparation process. eg what should you bog or fill with. Does the primer need to be painted over immediately as I have been told etc.

Any serious pitfalls to be aware of?

Thanks heaps Streets

Emu

[Emu]

Hang on Street,

I'll ask this question in General Technical coz I am sure it will spark some discussion and supplementary questions.

Also we won't hijack Spinners thread.

Emu

[-KIWI-]

mr strret neat in your dulux bibles do they list these 2 colours off my nz assb fc
farina which is possiblly a cream or off white colour
viscount whitch is possiblly a dark grey almost mettalic like in apperance ? as per pic below




chers kiwi

[mcl1959]

Basically there is a finite list of colours and I have been able to find most of them but not all of them yet.
It sort of goes like this
codes 1 through 154 are FX and FJ colours and include some colours used on other GMH products as well as FE.
eg Black, Maize cream and Frankston cream
codes 155 to 199 are single colours used on FE, FC and other GMH products including Bedford and Vauxhall
Code 200 is where FE 2 tone colours begin up to 253
Codes 254 to 315 are FC 2 tone colours
Codes 350 to 360 are FC single tone colours
Oddities;
code 349 is Volcanic grey over india ivory-a fleet colour
code 376 is Volcanic grey - fleet colour
code 378 is Commision grey - fleet colour
Code 377 ?   - fleet colour?
codes 400 to 407 are FB prototype colours which are very interesting. They are unusual mixes of pale 2 tone colours such as Cape Ivory over India Ivory and Ice green over india ivory and india ivory over volcanic grey
I only have 400, 401, 406 and 407.  The hope of finding the missing ones of these keeps me going and they are just as likely to be on the next wreck that you stumble across laying in a paddock.
Ken

[nicko]

my black beast paint code is 253-6258,can you please tell me what colour it was

[ACE]

Hi Nicko
BLACK
Regards,
ACE

[nicko]

gee,i was hopeing you wouldn't say that,maybe i should paint it gloss black then, :-/